OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT

PHILIPPINE COMMISSION ON WOMEN

National Machinery for Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment

MESSAGE

Promoting Gender Equality in the Labor Market

Launch of Five Publications 31 MARCH 2014 ADB Ladies and gentlemen, a pleasant morning to you all. Happy last day of National Womens Month and ADBs Gender Month although we all know that gender equality and womens empowerment work is never done and will continue throughout the year and years to come! For the Philippines, our theme was "Juana, ang Tatag Mo ay Tatag Natin sa Pagbangon at Pagsulong!" (Jane, your strength of character is our strength in rising and moving forward !) This was inspired by the stories of womens resilience, their ability to bounce back and rebuild their lives especially in the context of Yolanda and other disasters and conflicts. We opened Womens Month on March 8th with the first (in the world) Human Woman Symbol Formation, where 10,168 women and men, mostly from government and students, stood in Rizal Park to form the biggest womans symbol ever - to show solidarity for womens empowerment! Last week, we finally launched the Womens EDGE Plan, EDGE meaning Empowerment, Development and Gender Equality, the blueprint for implementing the Magna Carta of Women and the guide for agency GAD planning and budgeting. Last Friday, we awarded the DSWD and TESDA the Bronze GADtimpala for their outstanding gender mainstreaming work. Soon we will be coming out with mobile applications on the Magna Carta of Women, developed by college students who joined our contest. Solar News Channel will also be showing the award winning short films on various womens themes also done by college students. We congratulate the Asian Development Bank for commemorating Gender Month with a series of very substantive talks and panel discussions on relevant topics like the MDGs and gender equality, gender and ICTs, understanding why men use violence, and womens rights in Islam. And now the launch of five publications on promoting gender equality in the labor market.

The views expressed in this paper are the views of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the Asian Development Bank (ADB), or its Board of Governors, or the governments they represent. ADB does not guarantee the accuracy of the data included in this paper and accepts no responsibility for any consequence of their use. The countries listed in this paper do not imply any view on ADB's part as to sovereignty or independent status or necessarily conform to ADB's terminology.

In his International Womens Day statement, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said, "Countries with more gender equality have better economic growth. Companies with more women leaders perform better. Peace agreements that include women are more durable and parliaments with more women enact more legislation on key social issues such as health, education, anti-discrimination and child support. The evidence is clear: Equality for women means Progress for all." And this was the UNs theme for this years celebration. (This paragraph was skipped in the interest of time.)

I, together with a Philippine delegation of about 25 members, including 10 CSOs, just came from New York a week ago to attend the 58th session of the UN Commission on Status of Women. We worked till the wee hours of the morning on the Agreed Conclusions, I think the longest ever at 20 pages but very comprehensive and relatively progressive. Allow me to quote some highlights of this outcome document as it contains good provisions relevant to our launch today. For example, it calls on all stakeholders to: Ensure womens right to work and rights at work through gender-responsive policies and programmes that promote womens economic empowerment, including decent work for all, promote equal pay for equal work or work of equal value, invest in and empower women in productive sectors of the economy, support womens technical, managerial and entrepreneurial capacities, promote collective bargaining, address the gendered division of labour, prohibit and redress sexual harassment, prevent discrimination against women in the workplace, support the reconciliation of paid work with family/care responsibilities for both women and men, and promote womens full and equal participation in the formal economy, in particular in economic decision-making, and empower women in the informal economy, with particular attention to women domestic workers, who are entitled to the same basic rights as other workers, including protection from violence and abuse, fair terms of employment, and a safe and healthy working environment. It also included the promotion of social protection and the recognition of caregiving as a critical societal function. It emphasized the need to value, reduce and redistribute unpaid care work by prioritizing social protection policies, including accessible and affordable social services, including care services for children, persons with disabilities, older persons, and persons living with HIV and AIDS; the development of infrastructure including access to environmentally sound time-and-energy-saving technologies; employment policies, including family friendly policies with maternity and paternity leave and benefits; promote the equal sharing of responsibilities and chores between men and women in care giving and domestic work to reduce the domestic work burden of women and girls and to change the attitudes that reinforce the division of labour based on gender.

To enhance the enabling environment, it called for strengthen[ing] the role of women in formal and informal sectors, including in cross-border trade and agriculture, put[ting] in place measures needed to improve womens access to markets and productive resources, and mak[ing] markets safe for women including those living in rural areas, and thereby ensur[ing] that women- and men-owned businesses and farms have equal opportunities in markets. Assessing the MDGs for women and girls, it called for the inclusion of gender equality, the empowerment of women and human rights of women and girls to be reflected as a stand-alone goal and to be integrated through targets and indicators into all goals of any new development framework post-2015. This newest CSW outcome document complements these five new publications that we are launching today. They serve as platforms for more effective social and economic policies for the womens empowerment and gender equality in the workforce. The Philippine Commission on Women is happy to join forces with the Asian Development Bank and the International Labor Organization in publishing "Gender Equality in the Labor Market in the Philippines. The books offer an analysis that is localized and more relevant to the Filipino women. We are very grateful for the great contribution and support, these publications will offer for widening economic opportunities for women in the Philippines and the rest of Asia.

Once again, Congratulations to ADB and ILO for these books. Thank you and Good Morning!